QSDN-WISE: A New QoS-Based Routing Protocol for Software-Defined Wireless Sensor Networks

Today, a wide variety of applications with different requirements are rapidly developed in industrial wireless sensor networks, and providing the Quality of Service (QoS) for this kind of communication network is inevitable. It is difficult to solve the problems of poor adaptability and difficulty in the implementation of the QoS-based network configuration and management in traditional network architecture. We present a hierarchical software-defined network architecture for wireless sensor networks, which makes the complex network management possible and the system more adaptable. Furthermore, we propose a QoS-based routing protocol, called QSDN-WISE, which consists of a clustering algorithm, a routing algorithm, and local network maintenance. A double-cluster head-based uneven clustering algorithm, called DCHUC, avoids the energy hole phenomenon and reduces the workload of a single cluster head. The centralized QSDN-WISE routing algorithm constructs two heterogeneous forwarding paths for nodes, which meets the requirements for different data levels. Local network maintenance reduces the number of control messages in the network. The simulation results indicate that the QSDN-WISE can provide the QoS support for data with different requirements, balance the network energy consumption, and prolong the network's lifetime.